Four Nephwrack, Three Dragon's, two ships, and one big mess.

The Quicksilver Phantom joins the battle aboard the Realm warship. The ship itself is largely destroyed by the ambush and a large amount of magic unleashed in multiple areas by numerous Nephwrack.

Air Sage Türa appears to have vanished after suffering a number of attacks and no small amount of self-inflicted damage from his Air-Drago type Pinnacle charm.
V’neef Tara, sister to Kiara, appears to be using Wood-Dragon style unarmed and has sustained a number of levels of damage in the battle.
Sesus Wiesse, the fire aspect, fought thought the attacking dead and prepared to fight the Anathema aboard the ship. With some major talking down and a bit of an angry outburst he is convinced and then bound by oath to leave the northwest and to refrain from returning or recruiting others into hunting the Captain, Ki-Ken, Eight, or the crew.

Double Ambush, Fighting the Dead, Meeting Maru's Family

After much debate a conclusion is reached. The Solars will attack the Dragonblooded Wyld Hunt while they are escorting the Sharktooth cove transport. With naval combat and the bounds of the sea in their advantage the Solars prepare for an assault. In the dead of night they approach the warship, but Ki-Ken notices something is amiss.

Ghost ships.

Three of the same eastern style vessels that attacked the Quicksilver Phantom after the escape form the Lodestone drifted, immaterial, through the waters to ambush the ship.

Two prepared a violent ambush on the warship while the third veered dangerously toward the innocent farmers, priest, and animals aboard the transport.

Quick to act the captain used the cover of night to prepare a counter-ambush and assault the ship as soon as it crossed into this world.

With a well executed boarding maneuver and quick displays of combat prowess the hungry ghosts were quickly dispatched, leaving an ominous figure alone on the ship…

The figure, tall and adorned with black metal plate armor, worked some strange Sorcery to rend the air nearby. Crewmembers clapped their hands to their ears, but many began bleeding profusely, the Solars mostly survived the first round of the attack and quickly pursued the Sorcerer as he retreated towards the far end of his ship.

Having nowhere else to retreat to the Sorcerer began working foul magics once more, but in closing the distance many things became more clear.

He was an exalt of some type.
He used artifact armor and weapons (Eight also knows that these are possessed by ghosts).
He has a face that is shockingly similar to Teppet Maru, albeit with a grim pallor.
He is using Celestial Circle Sorcery.
He has a number of artifacts/trinkets on his person (Eight knows of spiritual activity in three gourds on his side).
There is a black scepter that is a sorcerous initiation artifact made of that same black metal.

Lease the Kraken, for a moderate fee. Then do it again.

Today we join the lesser heroes of this story as the players take control of their allies back on the Quicksilver Phantom. Tepet Maru goes to work in rowing the remaining merchant crew onto shore to treat them for the spiritual poisoning suffered at the hands/claws/fangs of the Doldrum. Once on shore Tiln, the Elder of Quiet Falls, begins treating many for early stages of starvation and dehydration.

Mint by Midnight manages to remove the ailment from some of the afflicted crew, but while doing so there was a commotion from the other ship. A massive Doldrum, in the form of a Kraken, had grabbed hold of the vessel and was assaulting the Dragons aboard while trying to pull the ship into deeper waters.

First Mate Ziesha sounded the call to set sail and, after a quick chase of the beast, managed to broadside the creature with cannon fire and a flamepiece barrage dealing enough damage to pull the creatures attention to the Pirate vessel instead.

A heated battle ensued with Mint, Ziesha, and Quill-for-Heart’s-Ink about the Quicksilver Phantom, but eventually the beasts tentacles were rendered useless and a couple final shots finished it off just in time for the Solars to return.

In the sanctum of Beckoning Hammer the Solars and the three Terrestrial Gods conversed about the possible causes and motivations behind the assault on the local gods. Tyrus suggested, with his tactical expertise, that the Doldrums must have been a diversionary tactic for something else and it was concluded that whoever had been making the undead with the strange black metal was responsible for the aggression in this area. In the middle of the discussion Ki-Ken noticed Miles Long Roar was distracted and then Lattice of Clouds. hotly after, they announced that something must be wrong at the ship for Miles Long Roar had received prayers to bless the cannons and Lattice’s cloaking of the ship had faltered.

As this was revealed another prayer, this one solid in form, appeared before Miles Long Roar. It was a bottle of sorts, with an ingredient list written in High Realm. A signed prayer strip in Old Realm was attached to it, but as soon as it hit the air a crackling of Viridian energy scorched the page and blotted out the sender.

With the pressing emergency Beckoning Hammer proposed that the Exalts swear on the Eclipse’s anima and invite him aboard their ship, a suggestion that Ki-Ken vehemently opposed on the premise that the God should trust them after they had rescued him. He stated that he did not trust Solars, but had hopes that their re-entry into the world heralded a new start rather than a continuation. Ki-Ken, tired of being blamed for the faults of a past life, did not take it well and threatened the God with the Greenwood Blade. Beckoning Hammer sent the other two Gods back to their respective sanctums with a request that they prepare paperwork for the Quicksilver Phantom.

Eventually, after a good amount of discussion and frustration of the Night Caste, the agreed to be bound in oath. The Oath, serving as a Divine loophole, allowed Beckoning Hammer the right to travel instantaneously with the Solars to the Quicksilver Phantom for the purposes of spiritual promotion of the ship small god.

They needn’t have hurried, though, as the crew managed to defeat the Kraken before they arrived.

Beckoning Hammer finished the promotional prayer to the ship and then left, leaving the Yasal crystal and a black spike with the Solars along with a promise to repair the airship if they continued to pursue his vengeance. The spike, a creation of his condensed wrath to be used against whoever was responsible for the attack, came with the caveat to: “Strike whoever is responsible with this, but don’t be nearby unless you are very certain of your ability to survive.”

The heroes and crew returned to Sharktooth Cove to get the work started on assistance of their neighboring village, but involvement in the preparations were cut short when Ten Stones warned Ki-Ken to come home to the Blue Lotus quickly and quietly. The group donned disguises and kept to crowds and shadows in order to pass through the village unnoticed. During the jaunt they all saw the trouble… a host of soldiers were in the town and were headed up by five Princes of the Earth, including Sesus Weisse, a Fire Aspected dragonblood that had attacked Mishi Youmo after the crystal prisons were broken… a bad idea for he was promptly ejected from the area, tossed into the horizon by Xia Wren Ta, the Demon Eater, with her tremendous strength. The group proceeds to wait a number of days for things to calm down. The ship is sent back to the Moonlight Cavern for repairs and restocking and the Solars plot out how they intend to deal with the Wyld Hunt…

Rescue of the Shipcraft God, Beckoning Hammer

Captain Tyrus, Eight, and Ki-Ken are asked by Lattice of Clouds and Miles Long Roar, two gods of the Western court named ‘The Family of Salt and Splendor’, to assist in an investigative mission to Brackwater Port.

Brackwater Port is the sole colonized area of an island about two and a half days away when traveling by sea. It is best known for exceptional ship craft and is one of the only local sources of lumber. Suspended somewhere within the dry-dock alongside a cliff face is the doorway to the sanctum of Beckoning Hammer, the elder brother of Lattice of Clouds.

The three exalts depart from Sharktooth cove about a week after the Dragonblooded pair, V’Neef Kiara and Ragara Soras Heral, had headed that way by merchant vessel.

Aboard the Quicksilver Phantom they make good time through the ocean waters with the blessings of the accompanying gods and exalted skill at sailing.

Keen eyes of Ki-Ken mark a dead-zone in the water surrounding the island. A sort of unnatural calm that they had seen in small form during the night of the festival mere days prior. Stuck among the doldrum-calm were a number of ships that had apparently been caught in the trap. Among the ships was the merchant vessel that the Dragonbloods had taken.

With some thinking over on the situation it appeared that a doldrum had removed the influence of nearby elementals and small gods, leaving no spiritual entities around to break the hold on the areas they had be-calmed with their hollowing touch.

Expecting a trap, but determined to continue on the exalts requested a blessing from Miles Long Roar. A cannon shot loud enough to break through the strange calm, giving them a clean path to sail into the land. A second request, to Lattice of Clouds, cloaked the ship from spiritual detection.

Having reached the shore an ‘Away Team’, consisting of the Solar Exalted Heroes, trekked across a bit of the island to reach the port-town. After about three hours walking through dead-silent forests they came across a terrible sight. The town was possessed by the hollow-infection of the Doldrum. Most of the humans had been so poisoned by the touch of the Doldrum that they could barely register the presence of the exalted heroes.

After making their way to the docks the heroes were set-upon by a hoard of Doldrum. Nearly a hundred of the creatures swarmed through the area to assail the champions, but to no avail. A combination of might, cleverness, and wrath rendered the elementals back into their component essences. Left behind were tiny stones and a single yellow jade crystal caged in black wire.

The crystal, a Yasal, was a type of spiritual prison designed to contain lesser sorts of spiritual creatures. The black wiring worked around it seemed to enhance the power to cage a more potent entity. Undoing the wire and willing the release of the entity within freed Beckoning Hammer and the heroes were then free to enter his sanctum to discuss what had happened and mask the totemic animas from mortal eyes.